Change a Light Day

How do you change the world? One light bulb at a time. Lighting plays a huge part of our energy use. All of us at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) ENERGY STAR program would like to wish you, our partners and friends, a happy Change a Light Day today!

October 1 marks the 4th annual ENERGY STAR Change a Light Day, and we just wanted to congratulate you for either being one of the 1.9 million Americans who have taken the pledge or for participating as one of the nearly 2,000 organizations that have driven pledges since 2006. Together we have collectively saved more than $220 million and prevented the release of more than 3 billion pounds of greenhouse gases with lighting alone.

Many small and large businesses, K-12 schools and universities, religious congregations, military bases, and state and regional utilities played an integral role in the success of the Change a Light, Change the World campaign by promoting energy efficiency, gathering individual pledges, and educating their communities about ways to protect the climate. EPA commends them all, including the following organizations that are responsible for inspiring more than 600,000 total pledges this year: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Salt River Project, Georgia Power Company, Southern California Edison, Santee Cooper, CB Richard Ellis, Kentucky NEED Project, and Virginia for Leading Governments. A number of our partners are also sponsoring Change a Light Day events and other activities. Visit a broader list on our Web site.

This year, there are additional actions you can take to Change the World beyond lighting, such as properly using a programmable thermostat, enabling computers to power down when not in use, and looking for the ENERGY STAR label when making a new purchase. All of these actions represent important steps in the ongoing fight against global warming. If every American household took the expanded pledge, we would save more than 110 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, more than $18 billion in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from more than 18 million cars.

To date, more than 1.9 million individuals have taken the pledge! We urge you to join us and take the ENERGY STAR Pledge today and also spread the word among your family, friends, co-workers, and more. You can also share your savings stories to let us know what you’re up to and inspire others. Together, we can all make a difference in the fight against global warming.

Publishing a site like GreenOrlando takes huge amounts of sustained effort. Since 2004, we’ve done our best to shine a light on people and organizations doing good things in our local community–the City Beautiful.